The Start button and taskbar at the bottom of the screen have disappeared. I attempted to fix the taskbar settings through the ‘Taskbar and Start Menu’ control panel, but nothing happened when I double-clicked to open this control panel applet. Microsoft Knowledge Base suggested Windows may need to be repaired, and a repair installation was the best option. Following the repair installation the problem still continued, so I came to the conclusion my user account (profile) was corrupted. I created a new account, but when I copied across the user data the taskbar was lost again! Is there a way I can copy my old account data into my new account, without losing the taskbar? The computer is running Windows XP Home Edition.

As you mentioned, your user account/profile is probably corrupted. However, we can first try repairing your existing user account to see if the taskbar can be restored. There is a very good program called Taskbar Repair Tool Plus! available for free download from: www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm . Notice that you can either download the entire program (approximately 50 KB) or you can download fixes for individual problems. I suggest you download the program, since it is very small and more user friendly. Once the program .ZIP file has downloaded, unzip the TaskBarRepairTool!.exe program file. Make sure you are logged into the affected account and then run the TaskBarRepairTool!.exe program. In the window that appears, under ‘Taskbar Problems’ select ‘Taskbar is Missing’. In the right-hand pane, you will see a short description of the problem. This certainly seems similar to the problem you are experiencing, so click the ‘Repair’ button to fix the problem. At the message asking to restart the Windows Shell, click ‘Yes’. Once the shell has restarted, hopefully your taskbar should return.

Should the problem not be resolved, you will likely need to transfer your data to a new account. You should be able to transfer the data without causing the taskbar to disappear in the new account. The reason this occurs is probably because you are copying corrupted data from your old account to the new account. There are many hidden folders and files contained in your user account/profile directory, which contain settings such as those for the taskbar and Start menu. These files are likely to be corrupted in your old profile, and you are copying such corrupted files to your new profile. However, if you only copy personal data across, without these hidden system files, you should be alright. Therefore, once you have created the new user account, only copy over the content of the personal folders located in your old account. For example, to copy the ‘My Documents’ folder, open this folder and select everything in the folder (by using either CTRL-A or the ‘Edit’ menu > ‘Select All’) and then copy the data to your new account. It is very important you only copy the data and do not move the data. This means if something goes horribly wrong, you still have the original data and can start over again. This same principle applies for the other personal data folders, such as Favorites. This means only the content of these folders is copied, not any system files, thus retaining the new system files in the new account.